ISSN No. 0976-8602 VOL.-III, ISSUE-II, APRIL-2014 Asian Resonance Non-Violence Resistance through Revolution of Opinions: Reflections on P.B. Shelley’s Poem “The Masque of Anarchy” AbstractAbstract Literature works as a magic wand to generate new ideas which can inspire us to make our earth a better place to live. It empowers us with hope; passion and strength that we need to create a better future for all humanity. No doubt, literature makes us think meticulously and question ourselves: do we believe that our visions about peaceful world are meaningless and irrelevant? Or should we let the world do what it's going to do? Is it justifiable to give everything in the hands of leaders who don't care in the least about preserving us or our world, leaders whom we don't trust and over whom we have no control? Should we accept that violence and war are inevitable? Or should we take up the noble endeavour to talk to common people, to sing and to write songs for the common people about peace? In the present paper, my humble endeavour is to underscore the power of the lyrics which prepare us to understand the deep connections between non-violence and peace. Exploring the relationship between aesthetics and politics in P.B. Shelley‘s lyric The Masque of Anarchy, the paper attempts to underline the power of poetry which can bring revolution of opinions. Keywords: Non-violence, Aesthetics, Resistence. Introduction ―The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry… the words linger in the memory over generations. And if the words carry revolutionary ideas, those ideas are communicated in poems far more thoroughly than in prose, in conversation or even in slogans‖ P.B. Shelley (A Defense of Poetry ) Kiran Deep Art works even the most aggressive , stand for non-violence Lecturer in English because of the inherent freedom from the workaday bustle and the Govt. College, Suratgarh practical individual, back of which is concealed the barbaric appetite of the species, which is not human as long as it permits itself to be ruled by Sriganganagar (Rajasthan) this appetite and fused with domination‖ Theodor Adorno (Aesthetic Theory) Both Shelley and Adorno look at works of art as the nucleus of forces that can move the world . We just need to keep on reading and to allow the tremendous power of literature to enter our hearts and to lead us to noble path of peace and harmony. The Australian poet A.D. Hope, who usually regarded poetry and politics as separate, wrote at the time of the Vietnam conflict "Inscription for a War." That poem includes the lines: "We are the young they drafted out For wars their follies brought about Go tell those old men, safe in bed We took their orders and are dead" Although such examples of nonviolent initiatives appear to refer to activities that occurred at one point in time, the biographies of the protesters show their fascination with the philosophy and language of nonviolence over long periods. Among English poets, P.B. Shelley is the most radical in his ideology and this can be traced in his poetry. The present paper attempts to analyze Shelley‘s poem The Masque of Anarchy which has long been associated with non-violence or one of its approximate cognates, ― passive resistence‖ or ― civil disobedience‖ . it has been called ‗perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance.‘ In The Cambridge Companion to Shelley, 157 ISSN No. 0976-8602 VOL.-III, ISSUE-II, APRIL-2014 Asian Resonance Timothy Morton has emphasized the power of this in the same vein, Shelley appeals that people should lyric that Henry David Thoreau's civil disobedience ―Stand … calm and resolute,‖ with ―folded arms and and Gandhi‘s passive resistance were influenced by steady eyes,‖ and thus shame the rulers into Shelley's appeal for nonviolence in protest and retreating in the face of the deep and wide strength of political action in his The Masque of Anarchy . the British people.―Rise like lions‖ thus beckons hope Written on the occasion of the Massacre at in the people to return to the more natural and fair ―old Manchester in 1819, (known as Peterloo Massacre) laws of England,‖ drawing on ―science, poetry, and the poem reflects Shelley‘s political consciousness. thought.‖ This poem is a rare representation, for He elaborates on the psychological consequences of Shelley, of ceaseless transformation without agony." violence met with pacifism. He appeals that the The theme of agonizing transformation has appeared people should ―Stand … calm and resolute,‖ with in several of Shelley's poems like England in 1819 ―folded arms and steady eyes,‖ and thus shame the and Ode to the West Wind, which invoke death or cruel rulers. It beckons hope in the people to return to revolt as prerequisites for change . Shelley continues the more natural and fair ―old laws of England,‖ the theme of revolution in The Mask of Anarchy, and drawing on ―science, poetry, and thought.‖ Exploring manages to make a nonviolent revolt at least as the human quest for peace and harmony in English violent as the revolutions he describes in other poetry, the present paper intends to analyze Shelley‘s poems. Shelley urges the English people to refrain poetic appeal for non-violence resistance in The from seeking ‗blood for blood‘, but to instead use their Masque of Anarchy. numbers, their words, and the laws of England as The poem bears witness to the fact that the weapons against the tyrants he censures in the poets are the secret movers and shakers of global opening stanzas of the poem. I'd like to point out how politics. This poem has sparked some of the most very fitting it is for Shelley, who in this poem is using sweeping historical changes of the past two centuries. words to spark rebellion, to encourage others to start The poem was written in response to the Peterloo a revolution with words. In his appeal, Shelley uses Massacre of 1819, in which British troops attacked a the metaphor to weaponize language. defenseless crowd of citizen protesters. The poet This lyric offers one important innovation: it's a urges the ―Men of England‖ to rise up—and stand description of a nonviolent protest, written before the still—against tyranny: term had ever been used or the tactic ever attempted. Stand ye calm and resolute, Although this poem isn't read or taught much these Like a forest close and mute, days, but when it was first published in 1832, it With folded arms and looks which are reached an audience on both sides of the Atlantic. Weapons of unvanquished war, One of its American readers was Henry David And let Panic, who out speeds Thoreau, who had it in mind when, in the late 1840s, The career of armed steeds he wrote ―Civil Disobedience‖—the first great prose Pass a disregarded shade formulation of the concept of nonviolent resistance. Through your phalanx undismayed. Thoreau‘s essay, in turn, was taken up by Tolstoy, This war-cry is more on the order of Gandhi whose book The Kingdom of God Is Within than the French revolutionaries, however, for it calls for You spread a Christianized version of the concept to virtuous principles and non-violence in the face of the millions of fervent readers. violent ruling powers. To quote ,Martin Luther King's In the twentieth century , Gandhi, a leader Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of deeply influenced by Tolstoy,Thoreau and Shelly the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1964, appeared on the scene and he often recited ―Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial Shelley‘s poem to his own ‗vast assemblies‘. political and moral question of our time - the need for The Mask of Anarchy (1819), which is to be man to overcome oppression and violence without analyzed in this paper, is a good example of Shelley‘s resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and political consciousness. It was written on the occasion violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the of the Massacre at Manchester in 1819, known as United States, following the people of India, have Peterloo Riots when, on August 16th, the cavalry was demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, sent by the government to break up a concentration of but a powerful moral force which makes for social frame workers that had gathered to demand the transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the reform of parliamentary representation. The end of world will have to discover a way to live together in the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 had resulted in periods peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic of famine and chronic unemployment, exacerbated by elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to the introduction of the first of the Corn Laws. By the be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a beginning of 1819 the pressure generated by poor method which rejects revenge, aggression and economic conditions, coupled with the lack retaliation.‖ of suffrage in northern England, had enhanced the Violence cannot be an effective remedy to appeal of political radicalism. In response, the abolish exploitation.As Boserup and Mac comments: Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for ―Violence is condemned because it causes parliamentary reform, organized a demonstration to unnecessary suffering, dehumanises and brutalises be addressed by the well-known radical orator Henry both the victim and the executioner, and only brings Hunt.